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Obama laments 'day of shame' as senators reject gun control

Lisa Lerer

Two days after the killing of 20 pupils at a Connecticut school shocked the nation, President Barack Obama climbed a White House stage with an emotional appeal: it was time to fix US gun laws.

Four months later, that agenda is in tatters.

A stripped-down version of the President's proposals failed in the Senate on Wednesday, delivering a blow to Mr Obama's second-term agenda and gun-control allies who sought to turn the horror at the Newtown shootings into their first chance in two decades to pass restrictions.

''There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this,'' Mr Obama said, appearing in the Rose Garden with Newtown family members after the vote.

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''It came down to politics. All in all, this is a shameful day for Washington.''

With the vote, the President's earlier moral calling on an issue of national importance has yielded to a symbol of his diminished clout in a divided Capitol Hill.

The measure's collapse marks a combined failure of White House advocacy and control of the President's party on Capitol Hill, plus the effect of re-election campaigns on senators facing potential opposition from the gun lobby.

The measure - which focused on expanding background checks of gun buyers - was a skeleton of the plan the White House put forward in January. That plan called for bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, such as the Bushmaster rifle and 30-round clips unloaded on 20 children and six school employees at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14.

But even on a narrow issue supported by more than 90 per cent of Americans surveyed, Mr Obama and his Democratic allies could not overcome the worries of reluctant Democrats from politically conservative states and overwhelming Republican opposition.

''I understand that some of our colleagues believe that supporting this piece of legislation is risky politics,'' Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who co-sponsored the background check amendment, said.

''I think there's a time in our life that's a defining time.''

For the President, the defeat was personal. Again and again, he delivered impassioned pleas for tighter restrictions.

He shed tears during that initial White House appearance after the December shootings.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama called senators from both parties, making a last-minute plea to build support for the bill.

It was not enough: five Democrats and 41 Republicans voted against the measure. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, cast a ''no'' vote, enabling him procedurally to ask for reconsideration as someone on the prevailing side. While prospects of that appeared negligible, Mr Obama said afterward: ''I see this as just round one.''

Chris Cox, a National Rifle Association spokesman, said in a statement the background checks would ''not reduce violent crime''.